As an NBA coach, Scott Skiles has always had a definitive modus operandi. In his three previous jobs, Skiles has dramatically improved his team’s defense, in some cases taking it from near the bottom of the league to near the top. That improvement helps the team become an absolute pain in the neck to play and make a quantum leap from the lottery to the playoffs. Then at some point, Skiles and his hypercompetitive nature become a bit overbearing for some players,
Jabari Parker and Julius Randle have several things in common. Both were lottery picks in the 2014 NBA draft – Parker going second to the Milwaukee Bucks, Randle going seventh to the Los Angeles Lakers. Both were one-and-done college stars from powerhouse programs – Parker from Duke, Randle from Kentucky. Both were supposed to be among the legitimate contenders for Rookie of the Year. Unfortunately, both suffered serious injuries that ended their rookie seasons shortly after they began and put them on
We’re a quarter of the way through the regular season and the NBA landscape has shifted dramatically. Kobe Bryant is retiring after this season and wants to be remembered as a “talented overachiever” when it’s all said and done. Meanwhile, Bryant’s Los Angeles Lakers (3-15) trail only the Philadelphia 76ers (1-19) for the league’s worst record. With every loss, the Lakers grow closer to keeping their top-three protected draft pick and potentially land top prospect Ben Simmons. On the flip side, the Golden
On Saturday, Oct. 24, three days before the start of the NBA regular season, 27-year-old guard Ish Smith was finishing up the Washington Wizards’ final preseason practice as he and his teammates prepared for Wednesday’s season opener in Orlando. Then, like he had five times before in his career, Smith got cut. Smith was one of five players on non-guaranteed contracts waived by Washington that day, an all-too-familiar occurrence for a player who spent his previous five seasons on eight different NBA
Back in February, the Milwaukee Bucks traded starting point guard Brandon Knight in a three-team deal that netted Michael Carter-Williams from Philadelphia and young players Tyler Ennis and Miles Plumlee from Phoenix. Knight’s contract was up after the season, and his trade from Milwaukee freed up salary space for guard/forward Khris Middleton. Middleton blossomed in his third year in the league, hitting 40.7 percent of his threes and playing strong defense for the young Bucks, who rewarded the 24-year-old with a five-year,
Khris Middleton received a 5-year, $70 million extension this offseason from the Bucks. He isn’t heralded as a star, has never been an All-Star and was even traded once. And he just turned 24. [Read more…]
The Milwaukee Bucks were one of last season’s biggest fairy tale stories. It’s not a common occurrence in the NBA for a team to go from a sorry 15 wins in one season to the playoffs in the very next campaign. But that’s exactly what the Bucks did in 2014-15. If that wasn’t remarkable enough, it is the factors that contributed to Milwaukee’s success that really stand out. Caoch Larry Drew was fired and replaced by Jason Kidd after Kidd’s power play
It pays to be patient. That is the financial lesson of the NBA’s offseason, which saw the biggest pay raises go to players who turned down contract extensions and gambled on themselves. Among the top 11 pay increases this summer, five went to players who felt like they were being lowballed by their teams — and proved it when they cashed in with bigger deals as restricted free agents this summer. Chicago’s Jimmy Butler, Orlando’s Tobias Harris, Detroit’s Reggie Jackson, Oklahoma City’s Enes